Labors of the Nepheliads
by Zaedah
Summary: Foreshadowing the day to come, the drive featured a three-minute snowfall and a jaywalking clown.
1. Chapter 1

_Thanks to all of your well-wishes, Zaedah-Dog is recuperating peacefully at home after her surgery. Her paws did all the tying as I dictated the following first chapter of a new (and surprisingly straightforward) case-fic. Sit back and enjoy..._

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**Labors of the Nepheliads**

Under the hurried wind, a city waking to darkness shrugged off the drafty fingers of a November dawn. Street lights swayed on their poles in a dance of glowing primary colors while trees bowed to the ancient shift of atmosphere. Clouds engaged in a brief visit before abiding by the incessant push to move on. The unruly breeze had plans for the day and passed through with the insouciance of a child at play. In the sun's early stretch, the sleepy world contained within the city limits rose in disgruntled yawns. Monday had arrived, as it's know to do and the bellies still aching from Thanksgiving leftovers rolled out of bed in the sullen misery that is seven am. Still, slow was the movement toward whatever each individual labeled daily life.

Except the woman shuffling around a small office at the back of an otherwise darkened lab. Every lamp in her makeshift office was lit, casting a dim glow out into the empty hall. Nail-bitten hands flew over a wall map, pushpins inserted into seemingly random points to the rhythm of a dozing cow's breathing. In the tradition of the obsessively anal, Olivia Dunham employed a color coding system to track specific murder details; red for sloppy killings, blue for methodical ones, yellow for suspected drugging/poisoning and green for the generic 'other.' In the course of the night she's thought them out, mapped them out and now, as the final red pin was forced through the drywall, she was ready to talk it all out. She needed Peter, a sentence with which she had ample reservations. Still, his listening skills were so usefully enhanced by a quick perception and a disarming wit that would rob her nerves of their sharpened edge.

Her Lone Ranger propensity collected dust with him around.

Last night, Olivia had thrown Peter out, ready to follow admittedly hollow threats with physical violence. The man had been characteristically stubborn, denying what had been plain enough for even Walter to detect. Every sound, every change in lighting, challenged his son's attempt to emulate Mona Lisa's impassiveness. Despite the gruesome photos and motive analysis biting at the center of her focus, Olivia had kept a discreet eye on the human wellspring of sarcasm, who'd been hunched over a microscope long enough to grow mold on his shoulders. An extra day's worth of beard graced his chin and when asked, Walter said only that he'd offered his child a fine cocktail that might reduce a headache and possibly Peter's ability to reason.

It was Peter's sixth 'I'm fine," this one spoken with as much irritation as he could fit into a whisper, that had Olivia enlisting an equally unfooled Astrid to drive him home.

And now, as the windstorm played keep away with toupees, Olivia carried on in silence to dig commonalities out of the sparse soil of uncommon crime. Alternately brutal and precise, the fatal wounds ranged from pristine corpses with only a tiny needle mark to mangled bodies featuring slashes that exposed organs better left under skin. Male and female, pensioners and toddlers, wealthy and beggar. And not a single pattern linked this cross-section of Boston. Right here, in her backyard, eleven people would never again gripe about Mondays.

The case was, by Broyles' own admission, routine. In bureau-fostered concealment, he hadn't bothered to explain why she'd been assigned the task. No Pattern emerged here, no supernatural tint or connection to Walter's experiments. To her eye, this was just a good old fashioned killing spree. Either many were working in concert to erode the general peace or one individual was the extremely creative sort. For the latter, Peter had cited multiple personal disorder and an unhealthy dose of boredom. Olivia could only hope this was the case; it meant fewer people to chase.

When her phone rang, a tense set of bones nearly evacuated its skin. "Dunham."

"Any leads?" Broyles didn't believe in greetings.

Sitting, Olivia rotated the nearest picture to face her. "There's almost too much evidence. Fingerprints, tire tread, possible DNA and all the supplies used in the killings. But nothing that ties them all together."

His sigh meant he tasted displeasure in the vast nothingness. "Give me something to tell the brass, Dunham."

"Tell them…" The open eyes of the pictured victim looked expectantly at her. "That we're narrowing the leads into a working hypothesis."

"And are we?"

Something in the photos begged for attention and Broyles' question was answered by a dial tone. Scattering the pile across her desk, Olivia scanned the scenes; the bodies, the positions, the blood trails or lack thereof. A clue of some kind hovered outside of her visual perception, waiting to be noticed but in no hurry.

Death possessed no time clock, hurry a state known only to the living.

**…………**

When the others drifted in on the vicious morning breeze, Olivia had been rubbing her stinging eyes numb trying to see what was she was missing. Red-lined vision fared no better in the surging noise of daylight hours. As the sun strolled its way across the winter sky, a coffee was carefully balanced on the crowded corner of her desk. Astrid molded a hello and a you're welcome into a wordless smile while giving the overworked wall map a quick glance. The pin holes distorted much of the flat city landscape and Astrid turned back to the perpetrator of the defilement.

"Someone was busy not sleeping."

Swallowing the sunshine fluid, Olivia approached the map. "I wanted to compare manner of death to area. But the mash of colors proves that nothing correlates."

"Weird how some of the victims had barely a mark on them and others looked like Halloween in Hollywood."

Olivia's fingers traced the jagged path of blue pins. "There's a lot weird about this case. But not enough to claim them as Pattern-worthy."

"Our friendly Pattern does manage to pop up in all sorts of unexpected ways," Astrid pointed out. "Maybe it's the way they died or who they were. But maybe it's something completely off radar, like a hobby."

The scoff was unladylike. "Maybe they were all bad tippers. Or wore mismatched socks. Or collected Pez."

"Maybe," Astrid waved an accusing finger, "you've been hanging around Peter too long."

While it wasn't far from the truth, the sentence wasn't long pondered. The map was a fire to her moth-like focus, drawing her back again with the promise of answers if only she stared hard enough. Towns, highways and rivers all lay in pastel silence beneath her gaze.

And her voice borrowed its flatness. "I have to trust that these colors still have something to show us."

The connect-the-dots line of green was followed next, intersecting often with red and while yellow was the rarest, there seemed little immediately apparent about the occurrences. It was as if a child set about with a handful of crayons and stabbed a paper randomly until the tips wore down.

Astrid turned to the crime scene shots spread in overlapping lines on the floor. "How are you grouping these?"

"I'm not." Olivia shrugged, eliciting a protest from sore muscles. "And not because I haven't tried. I just can't see anything we've missed. No commonalities except they're all dead."

The way that Astrid patted her shoulder, optimistically, maternally, announced the coming of a pep talk.

"Don't get too anxious. If it's there to be seen, you'll find it."

But she hadn't. And to make matters worse, the preferred source for a second opinion had yet to show. There'd only been the plastered walls on which to bounce ideas and it had little to say in return. And then the bellow of an elderly man wishing a pleasant day to his cow rumbled through the hall and Olivia's soggy brain wrung itself dry.

"Peter's here?"

Astrid nodded and watched the woman's ponytail fly at high mast behind her swiftly exiting form. Every fluorescent light in the lab had been switched on, shining off the walls with an eye-bruising glare. Reaching the common area, Walter was found dripping suspicious chemicals into a beaker, the glass groaning with the introduction of fiery acid. His son stood at a prudent distance to shield himself from any resulting mishap. Olivia's first thought was gratitude for Peter's presence. Her second would, in polite society, be considered less complimentary.

He looked like hell on parade.

Demons had crawled into his countenance, burying deep and shading his pallor toward gray. His stance, or more precisely his lean against a cabinet, indicated that he remained standing solely by resolve. But Olivia decided that whatever ailed him could only benefit from a distraction.

"Can I borrow you?" The request came softly, yet his wince said 'put the bullhorn down.'

In spite of the obviously persistent migraine and its affect on his demeanor, Peter managed to stave off the rumpled look he occasional favored. His dark blue button down was open at the throat, a black t-shirt sheltered underneath. And though he had forgone a shave yet again, the fuller beard was in no way unpleasing.

This dissected package followed hr to the bomb site that was her office, Olivia shutting the door carefully and letting her eyes drift back to the map. Peter gave it only a cursory glance, interest piquing at the barrage of white bordered victim portraits loitering on her floor.

"What do we know so far?" He asked.

"That eleven deaths have been determined to be the work of the same person or group." A hand was thrust through her hair. "We have no obvious gang or mob ties. The only thing that strings them together is a star shaped sticker left beside each body."

Nodding, Peter's deft fingers flipped through a few photos. "No fingerprint or DNA matches?"

Did he think she'd be pacing in this jail cell of an office if there was? "Plenty of both but nothing comes up in any database."

Sparing a second, disinterested glance at the pushpin jungle, Peter continued his scrutiny of the matte finish evidence. Olivia was certain the map could yet reveal something useful and she stood anxiously beside her three-hour masterpiece. Irritation rose that he'd bestowed ten seconds on the work that had replaced her beauty sleep.

"I color coded the methods used," she informed, her hand gesturing to the rainbow assortment. "It's fairly even between the bloodier killing and the…"

What he was doing couldn't be classified as listening. It could, however, be labeled as staring. Hard. Peter's eyes darted from one picture to another, displaying more focus than she'd seen from him in two days. And while she hated to interrupt, her curiosity was bleach on her flesh.

"What are you seeing?" As no response seemed forthcoming, Olivia knelt, achieving eye level if not eye contact. "Peter?"

The harsher tone broke through his concentration. "There's something in the background." He picked up the nearest photo, the body sprawled at a painful angle. "It's on the wall. And not just on this one."

Olivia squinted, making out what might have been a tiny gray painting had it not appeared partially transparent. The object was flat, frame-like and affixed to the wall of every murder scene picture she now re-inspected. The outside rim was a darker gray, a shade duller than the canvas and seemed too rigid for the thinness it projected. It was unobtrusive, neither overtly belonging nor so odd that it acquired any notice.

Still, how had she missed this?

Peter snatched a magnifying glass from her desk. She peered over shoulder, the oval glass enlarging everything from cereal boxes to newspapers but the painting seemed no bigger. The various wall textures in each shot bled through the image, making the box all the more opaque.

An investigation lacking a middle ground at dawn now had a singular point of interest.

Gathering several photos, Peter rose and stalked from the room with a great deal of purpose and not much steadiness. Olivia abandoned the pushpins and hurried after him. Attaching a scanner to his laptop, Peter added several pictures to the myriad of likely illegal programs he used for light hacking endeavors. Walter paused in his golly to watch the young people hovering over matters surely less important than his efforts to communicate with carrots.

In imitation of a doused campfire, Peter's expression darkened, the line cutting through his brow deepening. Turning the screen to Olivia, he waited for her to arrive at equal confusion.

"Am I missing something?" His voice was coated thickly with the evidence that this mystery was beginning to interest him.

And a mystery it was because the transparent square that turned up at every crime scene, the one it had taken Peter forty seconds to locate after she'd donated hours to the task, played hide and seek on the computer. It wasn't there, not on the four pictures he'd scanned though the paper boasted its existence. And they both rubbed at tender eyes, giving the optic nerves a chance to reconsider their position. Yet the box maintained its elusiveness, even with the addition of Astrid to the staring.

"You'll ruin your eyes," Walter warned from his station, the acid trying to corrode the bottom of his beaker.

Astrid waved him off. "It might be worth it. So, the thingy is here," she tapped a picture, "but won't show on the screen?"

"No," Peter confirmed.

The magnifying glass was employed once more, succeeding only in picking a fight with glare. Three sighs, ranging in tenor and depth, managed to pull Walter away from his work. With desire to lend his wisdom to those clearly lacking, he approached the puzzle being mulled by his extended family; his offspring, his guardian and his assistant.

Pressing in close, his rich voice took on a light scold. "Could you be making too much of it? Perhaps this piece of art is a shared interest of the deceased."

"Right," his son clamped down on the rising huff. "They all bought a magic painting from Target?"

"Fine store, to be sure." Walter's defense was born of their extensive use of beloved red. "If so, they'd have good taste. Pity."

Which didn't explain why, Target or not, the framed item didn't scan properly. Everything else was flawlessly represented between print and screen. Olivia's hands itched for something to occupy them, her eyes tired of carrying the load. But Walter wasn't done, though in his distraction he'd nearly sipped the molten mass from the beaker.

"Maybe what you seek prefers paper to pixels."

"And maybe Broyles lied about this being routine/" Olivia tugged her cell phone from her pocket with more umph than the manufacturer would advise and dialed her supervisor.

"Agent Dunham," he answered. "I'd like to hear a positive update."

"Sir, there was something… unique about our scenes. I'll need to visit a few to be sure."

The static on the other end increased, indicative of a retreat to a stairwell. "I'll take the details in person, agent. See me in the morning."

Evidently Broyles was concerned about the security of the line, having concluded the call without further word. The bureau was hardly immune to interception and traitors had been springing up like milkweed of late. Shaking herself from the unbidden memory of one special turncoat, Olivia returned to the waiting group.

"We need to identify what this box signifies," she informed the general population, then narrowed her attention to Peter. "We need to see these places."

His nod signaled consent and with an address list on the dashboard, the SUV was steered into the blustery Boston day. A conversation with Charlie lent her reluctant bureau partner to the cause, calling the various police photographers top question their notice of the non-painting. Of course, Charlie had voiced the tried and true 'be careful,' but the sigh that followed gave the impression that he expected nothing of the sort. Telling him the story by half was unfair, she knew. But for him the paranormal tint of her cases were as palatable as paint thinner.

A traffic jam halted their progress and Olivia turned to the silent man beside her. The rhythmic honking, a sign of Bostonian patience, was doing nothing for him if the tightening jaw was any clue. The wind still howled, louder now as though in response to driver frustration. As soon as a few feet of asphalt had been chewed, a development was reached and served as an escape from the main artery back-up. The longer route was by far a quieter one.

**…………**

The first scene, chronologically, was a two-family duplex of new construction and old trappings. The antique clocks were the focal point of every room, including the space featuring an enormous blood stain. A fresh area rug had been laid but couldn't quite cover the damage done to the hardwood. A single mother had met a fierce end here while her son played next door. Flipping through the photos until she found the corresponding shot, Olivia compared the mate-finish image to her surroundings. Everything but the new carpet was accounted for. Everything except the ghostly square. Peter moved to the place on the wall where it had manifested, running his fingers over the garish wallpaper.

"No nail marks. No discoloration." He tilted his head. "Unless it belongs to Casper, it wasn't here."

Olivia scratched at a too tight ponytail. "So either it was hung with something that leaves no trace, it levitated in every shot or it was never here."

"Film says it was here."

Short of using the dreaded tank, they couldn't exactly ask the dead. The ticking clocks sounded like a deadline, a Jeopardy-inspired tune getting stuck in her head. Were they over-thinking this? For as much as fringe science was easily blamed for the unknown, perhaps there was a simpler explanation.

Her eyes flickered between the wall and the picture. "Could it be some new technique that shows on paper but can't be detected on the computer?"

Peter left the wall to give her the look that said she was one finger short of a hand. "You mean, like magic paper?"

"Yeah."

"Only in the Twilight Zone you live in," he mused and Olivia stifled the grin at the return of his snark. "But even so, it would take a time traveling ninja to tamper with all six forensic cameras."

Several boroughs had been hit by the spree and none had reported any problems with their equipment. For all of three seconds Olivia debated the wisdom of her next question but the prospect of more lives at risk loosened her tongue.

"Do you know any guys that might be compelled to try?"

The look that earned wasn't a favorite. "Not every person I know qualifies as a criminal."

Which wasn't entirely her point. "I'm just saying…"

"I know what you're saying. And no, I don't know anyone who could be involved in this. Whatever this is."

Brave birds chirped into the chilly air, likely having lost a few loose feathers to the relentless wind and adding a Mary Poppins soundtrack to the tension. Mercurial temper though Peter may have, it was still fairly tough to insult him, so Olivia chalked his sensitivity up to the headache.

Time to placate without patronizing, a delicate task. "Okay. Then let's try somewhere else."

Somewhere else took the form of three houses and one business, all complete with the aura of the recently deceased and devoid of the mystery image. Walls bore no trace of what the photos suggested. And families, when not busy commending their dead to the dirt, couldn't account for the square. In each place Peter assumed a sheath of background, one eye scanning possessions for a box while the other observed the agent's gentle grilling of the mourners.

Meanwhile, impatience nibbled systematic holes in her flesh.

The equation of the ride back to the lab went thus; her voice plus frustration equaled more of both. It didn't help that her lip balm was situated uncomfortably in her back pocket, though it failed to alter the speed of her verbalizations. Exercising a rant stolen from Walter felt good. Suppositions bounced off the diving board of her tongue and splashed into the upholstery while the five o'clock rush was narrowly avoided. The persistent remnants of the morning's wind storm sent trees into sway, pushing lightly at the tall SUV, but she paid it no mind. As much as they'd been exposed to the breeze today, her hair would require garden shears to tame it. At the seventh red light, Harvard directional signs became visible and it occurred to Olivia that she'd lost a measure of audience participation.

"You still with me?" She strove for a gentle rousing but managed to make the poor man jump.

"Do I have to be?" Peter mumbled, hefting the cross of the thoroughly put upon before quickly adding,  
Sorry."

"You're not sleeping, I take it."

Peter shifted in his seat, keeping his gaze on the city's loose trash drifting by. "Walter's daytime babbles are like sonnets compared to the nighttime variety. He sounds like a steel drum full of raccoons."

"Formulas still?"

The sigh registered one point below terminal. "Not always. His repertoire is growing and I can thank late night infomercials for that. Needless to say these pictures are giving me ideas." His voice took on enough gravel to pave the sea.

Olivia broke out the not-quite-apologetic smile. "You get cranky when sick. Good to know."

"M'not sick."

The dawn of a sulk added volumes to her smirk.

That he looked willing to meld with the floor mat tempered her inclination to tease. The Harvard campus lay ahead and Olivia was only too happy to tie a ribbon on this day. The sensor lights of the parking lot were staggering toward a glow, the night due on stage to perform its wonders. Securing a spot next to the decrepit station wagon, Olivia stepped out into the fading storm and noticed that Peter had made no move to exit the vehicle. Giving a tap on the hood got his attention and she leaned into the open window.

"Your bed awaits," she informed, realizing three words too late the myriad ways he could take that.

Fortunately, Peter chose realism as he opened the door and wound the hand crank to close the window. Her current government vehicle, a relic of early nineties proportions, was a punishment for blowing up the last one. The government didn't believe in obtaining warranties for their fleet.

"My sofa, you mean."

"Solve this and I'll requisition the room next door."

It was far easier to birth promises when the criteria for success ranked among the improbable. With a wall map and photo-carpeted floor, Olivia settled back to work as Peter made a few calls to his more crafty associates. Two hours, soup and an argument later, a pair of bodies landed on soft surfaces in different sections of town with prayers on their lips for no new adventurers in creative dying tonight.

But like so many things, hope was a figment of jaded imagination.


	2. Chapter 2

_Forgive the delay... Going through the home loan process is enough to make one ramble beyond even Walter's capabilities. But approval tastes yummy!_

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**The Labor of Nepheliads**

**2**

"You knew this wasn't an ordinary serial killer case, didn't you?"

Olivia, encased in a suit black enough to bring morticians to tears, paced Broyles's office while the wind's continued argument with the earth rattled the trees below his large windows. Two cups of untouched coffee stood tall, caffeinated guards against any attempts to launch across his desk. He must have seen the urge to shake him in the woman's twitching because he leaned back further in the leather chair.

"Suspicion doesn't equal fact, as you well know. But there were the random methods to consider. And we both know the Pattern has been even less predictable since the attempt on Nina Sharp's life."

"That she lived apparently failed to please it." Olivia was edging toward belligerence now but this terrible job security allowed such freedom. "It would make things easier if I had all available information up front."

Broyles sipped his latte with the relish of a man unaccustomed to frilly drinks but quickly learning.

"You're classifying my hunch as information and I believe that's a stretch."

Stretches were certainly their forte of late. All they needed were Martians to achieve paranormal bingo. And when her superior slid several new pictures across the smooth, cherry wood surface Olivia couldn't bother wringing her face into surprise.

"Last night?" She asked, thumbing through the matte finish evidence of someone's insomnia.

"A new twist, it seems. These four were all found together. He or they have moved onto mass slaughter and, according to the coroner, each was handled differently."

"That takes time." The defiled bodies of two seniors, a twenty-something and a toddler drew the moisture from her mouth. "Is the crime scene still intact?"

Broyles nodded, taking one folder from a small pile. "Local law enforcement reported this three hours ago. I've asked them to leave the dead until you arrive. Bring the Bishops and tell me something useful by day's end."

Hovering like an eavesdropper in the new shots, the notice of the odd little cube was withheld in the spirit of her boss's own habit. Better to wait until an explanation was closer to being discovered. And perhaps to foreshadow the day to come, the drive to the lab featured a three-minute snowfall and a jaywalking clown.

The luxurious scent of Astrid's special brand of coffee filled Olivia's nostrils, promising a jolt of liquid joy. Apparently, everyone else had been hooked up to an IV of the stuff because the activity level in the lab resembled a disturbed hive. Peter was the first to register the woman standing in the doorway sniffing the air like it contained fragrant divinity and his grin was almost as welcomed as the java.

"You look better," Olivia observed while he poured thick brown heaven into a Betty Boop mug for her.

"Fell asleep behind the wheel." He topped off his Red Sox cup. "I was parked, fortunately. Best sleep in weeks."

As Walter rambled about the properties of Milk Duds as related in no way to their case, Olivia briefly entertained the notion of napping in her own car as an alternative to soldiering on with fickle justice. Still, the photos in her hand were deposited in front of Peter.

"Casper the Friendly Square is back." Peter tilted his head as if trying to see beyond the flat box. "I've been told this isn't a manipulation of film.

Typing her hair back, Olivia granted him an eye roll. "Told by whom?"

"I don't kiss and tell," Peter said, affecting dismay.

"Never did," Walter supplied from his residency in oblivion. "Oh, I'd inquire about his young ladies but the boy was always tightlipped."

Peter returned partial attention to the pictures. "I'm a gentleman."

"Gentlemen don't start courting at ten, son." Walter's chuckle, like the population of caged bunnies, grew into a horde.

"You're the one who gave me that centerfold puzzle, remember?"

Walter grinned. "And you're the one who got caught at an abandoned Laundromat."

"I could explain that, but I won't," Peter declared as he scanned the pictures into his laptop.

Once they were loaded, the computer screen commanded the breadth of Peter's focus. Olivia peered hard at the pixilated images, trying to determine what he might see this time. The hum of the lab dulled, common noises seeming to hush as the two stared deeper into the one-dimensional. And then Peter jumped back, knocking over his stool and sending the combined heart rates of the group soaring. Olivia's startled gasp joined the clanging metal in an echo race around the perimeter.

"Did you see that?" Peter's voice came in a scratchy whisper.

"See what?" Olivia couldn't detect anything new on the screen that should produce such a reaction.

He was panting. "It moved."

Astrid joined them, rescuing the fallen stool and peeking around Peter's shoulder. "What moved?"

Distancing himself from the computer and the numerous eyes on him, Peter gestured to Olivia in disbelief. "How could you miss that?"

"Has your migraine returned?" Walter absently stirred a melting spoon through the fizzing beaker. "I have just the thing."

Peter's hands rose in defense. "No, Walter. I don't need to be comatose." Turning back to Olivia, the younger Bishop's eyes bore into her with the drill of abject pleading. "Look, the square shifted higher on the wall and then closer. Like… like 3-D without the glasses."

"Whatever you think you saw can't be, Peter."

"I don't think I saw it," he said. "It moved."

Olivia's fingers found the fabric of his sleeve and gripped there as though holding him to this reality. "Maybe you just need more rest. After yesterday…" and froze, regretting the tactic.

The laptop cover was slammed down with a most technologically unhealthy thud. Backing away to grab his coat, Peter strode out of the double doors. Counting in French, Olivia waited until her faltering memory got her to fifty before calmly ambling after him, trusting he wouldn't go far.

On the way to whatever brooding sanctuary he'd claimed, Olivia occupied her mind with nonsense as only a trained agent can. Her grocery list was modified, a plant watering schedule was devised and she pondered the number of steps from the car to John's grave. A dozen mundane notions carried her though the halls and out the door to the gazebo last year's freshmen had constructed. A freshly stubbled man huddled in the far bench out of the wind-fueled snow coming down now in droves.

Per the oft-revised field manual, an opening was needed to connect the agent to the prey.

"Don't catch cold, Petey."

The variation on his name served him right for the 'Liv's' and Livvy's' she'd endured. It took a moment, but a hint of humor seeped into the green of his eyes. Snow had started to compile on his jeans and Olivia cursed the unavoidably damp fate of her trousers.

"I haven't been Petey since kindergarten. And that teacher tried to expel me."

"Troublemaker even then, huh?"

Closing his coat tighter against the persistent breeze, Peter blew warmth into his cupped hands. "According to Walter, I did everything too early." He breathed deep the biting air before continuing. "I wasn't seeing things and I don't appreciate being doubted. I don't do that to you."

It was true, the tank experiment being the glaring example. He may not always approve of her ideas or methods but his support had thus far been unwavering.

"No, you don't." Her hand set out to find his. Odd really, but she'd blame it on the shared warmth concept.

Peter's fingers must have been numb, if their pale tint was any proof and they wrapped around her hand with a starched stiffness. The wind died down long enough to make running for proper shelter prudent but he didn't seem interested in engaging in common sense. The snow had him, the swirl of light particles dancing before them before landing, invariably, on her wet pants. A touch of placation might be required to end this frigid commune with nature.

"If the box is mobile, it couldn't have been at the actual scenes. Any sober photographer would have noticed that. Could it be our perception of the pictures?"

"Maybe we should show them to Walter," Peter suggested while standing, taking the warmth with him, "God knows his perception's abnormal."

…………

A lightly wrinkled hand sorted through gruesome images of demise and proceeded to make the rather unexpected and exuberant fuss over the inspired clarity of today's film. That it surprised anyone present was a testament to the ongoing denial that the man lived in his own more interesting reality. Eventually, Walter got around to inspecting the small box and his pronouncement was spoken with as much authority as one can force around a lollipop.

"This is a vessel."

Three sets of eyebrows ascended and Peter asked, "You're sure about that?"

"Oh, positive." The sticky glob of sugar was waved about, a conductor arranging a symphony of thoughts. "Yes, this is a container and you must find it."

"Or else?" Astrid supplied.

The lollipop was nearly dropped. "My dear, we must never think in terms of 'or else.' It makes you crazy. No, you must locate it because it's critical that I look inside."

"Because you have no idea what's in it and you're curious." Peter shook his head. "You've never actually seen this before, have you?"

"Well, not as such."

Olivia stood, hands on hips in that defiant way that suggested she's keeping said hands from strangling someone. She'd long been patient in the face of Walter's unique tendencies but a sore neck and an increase in the body count made her unhappy,

"So you don't know what it really is. Vessel is your guess?"

While the scientist perfected his shamed expression, Peter leaned close to whisper, "Give him a minute and he'll postulate."

Walter strolled between the animal pen and his rack of tubes. "I can postulate that it served a function at these sites. If, as you say, it was not visibly present beyond the photographing, then it was recalled in some way. Perhaps even a portal by which someone might observe the killer. Or… the killer is the box? Too many fascinating possibilities."

Peter moved away from his pacing father, opening his laptop and flipping through the saved images. He noticed that Olivia was separating herself from the wild supposition and was heading to his table.

"You know," Peter began, "I hate that I can't leave this sci-fi movie. The set comes with disappearing props and the cast is nuts."

"Excluding me, of course." And her first genuine smile of the day was prompted by his noncommittal shrug. "I want to visit one more site today. You coming?"

"My life's ambition. Just let me get some equipment."

The snow had subsided, leaving clumps of itself on every surface. The main roads were still being plowed, heavy machinery bullying the white mass to one side. Slick blacktop met four tires and rejected the rubber's request for grip. The slower pace gave Olivia time to cast questioning gazes to the 'equipment' tucked into a large padded bag behind his seat. Black bags made her nervous.

Pulling up to an unshoveled curb, the pair climbed out of the SUV and faced a Christmas card in progress. The cottage was stamped with quaint; pale yellow siding with cornflower blue shutters and snow-covered planters in every window. The American flag fluttered lightly while a cardinal perched on a feeder. On a street aptly christened Mayberry, the home was a centerpiece that hid the residue of a messy murder behind its Rockwell façade.

Naturally an adorable grandmother waited inside, showing the two young people in with a promise of hot chocolate. The chill worming its way into Olivia's bones made the offer impossible to refuse. Peter had no such predilection for niceties but when the senior shoved a Care Bear mug into his hand, that charming smile was lifted from mothballs in response. Once left alone in the kitchen where linoleum tiles had taken a bleach bruising, Olivia compared the photo to the scrubbed scene and studied the bare spot where the box had shown its sharp angles against floral wallpaper.

Peter was crouched near a stubborn red streak on white tile, unburdening the black bag of its many cameras. Each device was laid out in a semi-circle in front of him and she had to admit interest in the idea.

"Let's see if we can duplicate the crime scene shot," he said.

Olivia leaned out of frame. "If it shows when these are developed, we've got a trend." Striving for optimism, she willed a result that would bring them closer to the Why and Who.

"Probably won't show on the computer, though." Peter uncapped a 35 mm professional camera and aimed at the wall. "And that's bugging me."

A typical male response to uncooperative technology. One she understood, as the nudge of bother in her own mind for the layered mysteries was irking her fiercely. The shutter clicked, the film advanced and a second picture was taken. The camera was returned to the line up and another selected, a LeClic with an outdated round disc. The process was repeated until a total of 7 cameras contained a few less-than-glamorous shots of the offending wall and its yellowing pattern. To her count, the various flashes had gone off at least twenty times and the corner of her left eye twitched from the brightness.

"She was a sweet girl, though I expect families always tell you that." The elderly woman's gaunt frame was dwarfed by the arched doorway.

Olivia affixed to her face the most sympathetic expression she owned. "Can I ask you a few questions?"

An arthritic neck cracked as it was forced into a nod and Olivia gestured to the wooden breakfast nook. A small bay window let a sneaky draft infiltrate, keeping Olivia's hands clasped together for warmth. Peter leaned against the counter, nursing his cooling chocolate as eyes grazed on the hanging African masks.

"I told the police everything I know, which ain't much." Millicent Bray, who preferred to be addressed as Mimi, had the shaking hands of the grieving and the eye bags to match. "Adilah wasn't any trouble, didn't bring home strange friends and sang in the church choir. Do you know she won the regionals for solo performance?"

Olivia shook her head, looking over the woman's shoulder at a graduation picture. "She was studying to be a paralegal?"

"Sure was. Not the top of her class but holding her own. It's tough, learning to cope with a reading disability as strong as hers. But my girl was stronger."

"And her parents?"

"God forgive me, but that boy of mine is useless as air freshener for a landfill. I took Adilah out of the ghetto the day they slapped cuffs on him and that child bloomed."

The blossom had been cut from the stem and trampled to powder in this picturesque house, a life's conclusion lacking closure. When they left the house, a bit of green caught Olivia's notice; parsley in the garden that had survived the cold. The determined plant and Mimi both proved that there were still things even the most ruthless killer couldn't destroy. Mimi had already established a scholarship in Adilah's name, which meant Justice in Swahili.

Having made a stop at the tumbledown residence of 'some guy,' Peter shuffled back to the waiting vehicle with an armload of development equipment. Too impatient to sit still for bureau processing, he wanted to do the work himself, revealing another secret skill whose previous applications she'd rather not know. A supply room in the lab was pressed into service as a makeshift darkroom and while Peter poured chemicals into trays, Olivia screwed in a replacement light bulb.

"So the answer is one," Peter said.

Olivia dismounted from the stepstool and shrugged. "One what?"

"How many agents it takes to… nevermind."

He opted to forego the offered apron, quipping that the task hardly required Martha Stewart attire. What he did next was beyond her. If questioned, she could attest to a significant amount of dipping and drying. Halfway through, Peter shooed her out with instructions to download the two digital cameras he'd used onto his laptop.

A steaming cup was set before her as Olivia tried to keep from clicking and unclicking her retractable pen. Nervous tics were for other people. Mimi's story replayed in her head, the pride and loss adding salt to the woman's tone. While this exercise in photo lab mimicry wouldn't provide court-worthy evidence, it might answer the tampering issue. That box was the sum of the answer, vessel or not.

"It's not here," Olivia announced while straining her eyes to detect the square on either the computer monitor or the tiny camera screen. "Is it allergic to gigabytes?"

"Olivia," Peter called from the darkroom. "It seems to have gone forth and multiplied."

In his hands was a stack of moist film prints containing the image of boxes scattered like playing cards in a tornado. She fanned the shots out on a utility table, noting the varied number of squares in each shot. In previous pictures the square had been flat on the wall, a direct look at a petite painting. These new photos featured side views, showing the thinness of the construction. It resembled a sheet of paper.

Walter plucked a picture off the table, turning it every possible way with widening eyes. His mouth mocked a gasping fish as the brain scrambled for the right description and an index finger was poised in a frozen Eureka.

"Here we go," Peter muttered under his breath.

"I… it's just delicious. Like Mystery Meat Monday!"

The normally passive Astrid was heard to groan from her non-intrusive space just behind the group. She'd likely heard the ingredients for St. Claire's questionable meals in one of Walter's rambles. Peter stepped away to fetch the magnifying glass, which was duly passed around. There hadn't been a thing on those walls when the photos were snapped and yet…

They were everywhere, like maps hiding their treasures in the blinding sameness of a gray sea. As though their eyes were unfit to view the masterpiece.

"Not a vessel," Olivia corrected Walter's prior assessment. "But maybe a message."


End file.
